Hit Hard by High Energy Costs, Hawaii Looks To the Sun (nytimes.com) 115
Nearly a third of Hawaii's single-family houses have rooftop solar panels -- more than twice the percentage in California -- and officials expect many more homes to add panels and batteries in the coming years. From a report: Even before energy prices surged globally this year, homeowners, elected leaders and energy executives in Hawaii had decided that rooftop solar panels were one of the best ways to meet demand for energy and tame the state's high power costs. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has only strengthened the state's embrace of renewable energy. Electricity rates in Hawaii jumped 34 percent in April from a year earlier because many of its power plants burn oil, about a third of which came from Russia last year.
While Hawaii faces unique challenges, the state's reliance on solar carries lessons for other states and countries looking to fight climate change and bring down energy costs. The state has increased the use of renewable energy in large part by getting electric utilities to accept rooftop solar rather than fight it, as energy companies in California, Florida and other states have been doing. "In Hawaii, we've come to the recognition that rooftop solar is going to be an important part of our grid, has to be part of our grid," said Shelee Kimura, president and chief executive of Hawaiian Electric Company, the state's largest power provider. "Some people think we're crazy. Some people think we're pretty amazing."
While Hawaii faces unique challenges, the state's reliance on solar carries lessons for other states and countries looking to fight climate change and bring down energy costs. The state has increased the use of renewable energy in large part by getting electric utilities to accept rooftop solar rather than fight it, as energy companies in California, Florida and other states have been doing. "In Hawaii, we've come to the recognition that rooftop solar is going to be an important part of our grid, has to be part of our grid," said Shelee Kimura, president and chief executive of Hawaiian Electric Company, the state's largest power provider. "Some people think we're crazy. Some people think we're pretty amazing."
isn't storage the problem there? (Score:2)
I hear there's real ... um disagreements between consumers and the utility about people wanting to use solar panels when the sun shines and utility power when it doesn't. And utilities not offering pricing friendly to solar. I wonder what the numbers are for people actually installing a lot of storage and going fully off grid. I'd like to hear of large storage projects to store all that sunshine.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But other utilities had been dragging their feet for a long time, and only recently started working on really integrating solar into the grid design. Sigh.
Re: (Score:1)
But the sun is so far away. They have all that free energy under their feet that runs 24/7
Re:isn't storage the problem there? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Geothermal is on the Big Island.
80% of the population lives on Oahu, 250 km away.
There are no power interconnects between the islands.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are some political issues there that might be impossible to overcome. A well-earned distrust of white people and Oahu by native Hawaiians makes it an uphill battle.
But, even the island of Hawai'i doesn't have a grid that covers the full island. That would likely be a better starting point.
Re: (Score:3)
This is what happens when you don't have long term planning, only short term profit chasing. If large solar and wind farms had been years ago, Hawaii would be in a good position to insulate itself from fossil fuel price rises now.
Re: (Score:2)
There has been solar and wind on the islands for a long time. Some offshore wind is likely needed, but I wouldn't want to be the one proposing it!! What is changing is the coal-fired plant on Oahu is shutting down in September, so there is a need to add batteries for the 5-9PM period, and with additional batteries the grid can easily support more solar.
Re:isn't storage the problem there? (Score:4, Interesting)
usually it is the consumers that are morons, they forget Solar doesn't generate at night and grid scale storage is incredibly expensive.
Hawaii is unique because most of fossil-fueled electricity is generated by diesels and simple cycle turbines. They can be started or shut down within minutes, so it's entirely possible to throttle down fossil-using generation during the daytime and ramp it back up during the nighttime. This allows to save very expensive fuel by not running the generators during the sunny hours.
This doesn't work well on the continental US, because the grid is much more efficient and typically uses much cheaper fuel.
Re: (Score:2)
It's also kind of unique because it's one of the most geologically active regions on the planet. The capacity for geothermal must be huge.
Re: (Score:2)
Just the island of Hawai'i. Oahu and Maui can't really use geothermal.
Re:isn't storage the problem there? (Score:5, Interesting)
You cant' just cycle up generators in the evening and power them down during the day
You absolutely can. And Hawaii does just that. A significant part of energy in Hawaii is generated by reciprocating engine diesels.
To do that you either need to have the generators already spun up as "a couple of minutes" is way too long to bring stability back to the grid or you need to have storage that can handle the spikes, either option is quite expensive and requires thought and planning and neither option is cheap.
Nope. On every island but Oahu some of the diesels on the grid have been working in load-following mode since forever. They _literally_ throttle up and down, within seconds. Some diesels can shut down completely, of course.
Hawaii actually had the opposite problem, they had to install giant resistors to dump power in case of power generation surges. Batteries also helped, but they were not essential.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. On every island but Oahu some of the diesels on the grid have been working in load-following mode since forever. They _literally_ throttle up and down, within seconds.
And even faster on the electric side because the spinning mass provides very fast short-term storage. Also, it is no problem these days to predict whether solar will go down or have reduced performance in the next few minutes and bring generators up to idle in preparation if needed. Really just requires wind and light sensors. The rest is software.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you watch a weather radar that shows incoming cloud cover and preemptively start the fossil generation?
Re:isn't storage the problem there? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in New Zealand we are over 80% clean energy with solar and wind making up most of the new capacity but hydro providing a base load. When you average out the solar and wind you have time enough to change water flow rates thru dams to keep the grid stable. This is not theory, but the reality of how power is generated in many places today.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Hydro is very nice base load as it can react pretty fast and is very well understood.
These problems really are solved. I have no idea why people claim time that this is all infeasible or highly problematic.
Re: (Score:3)
Becoming ever cheaper and more efficient. [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:2)
Good to know that these seem to finally become viable for real-world use.
Re: (Score:3)
In part because some people are just emotionally invested in fossil fuel and/or nuclear, and basically cognition shuts down when renewables are brought into the equation. I mean, seriously, there's a poster here claiming that cloud cover drops solar to zero. Like, fuck, pal, it's goddamned daylight, which means the vast majority of photons being emitted by the sun are still getting through the clouds. Otherwise, it would be pitch dark, so sure, when a goddamned hurricane comes along and basically turns the
Re: (Score:2)
I have solar and I found rainy days are better then really cloudy days. Luckily where I live neither is a problem all that often. Also, on rainy and overcast days, you never need your AC and the rest of the house barely takes any power, so you are still generating more power on bad days then you would use.
P.S. Obviously if you turn on your heat pump and kick on the electric oven and electric clothes dryer, then all bets are off.
Re: (Score:2)
P.S. Obviously if you turn on your heat pump and kick on the electric oven and electric clothes dryer, then all bets are off.
Yes. But these can be managed.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. They probably think "renewables" = "socialism" or "renewables" = "unwashed green hippies" or something equally stupid. The pure fabrications these people are using as "arguments" are both fascinating and appalling.
Re: (Score:2)
Because these claims are being pushed by fossil fuel industries, or utilities concerned about future profits, etc. F.U.D. Just get enough people out and about saying "oh, that sounds nice but I heard that..."
Re: (Score:2)
Because these claims are being pushed by fossil fuel industries, or utilities concerned about future profits, etc. F.U.D. Just get enough people out and about saying "oh, that sounds nice but I heard that..."
And the nuclear industry as well. Yes, makes a lot of sense too me. People that want to stick to the old ideas because they make them a lot of money (and damn the future of humanity) and a lot of useful idiots letting themselves get "convinced" because they are unable or unwilling of fact-check.
Re: (Score:2)
This is nonsense. Solar is highly predictable, and if you really want to you can smooth the output with a small battery.
If you look at the mains frequency you will see that it's all over the place. Even cycle to cycle there is variation. You know why? Because even fossil fuel generators can't keep it as steady as some people seem to assume is necessary. Yet somehow the grid survives and doesn't collapse every few seconds.
Re: (Score:3)
This is nonsense. Solar is highly predictable, and if you really want to you can smooth the output with a small battery.
Indeed. Is it like these people have never heard of things like weather-forecasts, weather sensors and light sensors. They also seem to be ignorant as to how a power grid is managed. For example that there is re-planning every 10 minutes (European grid) for needed reserve capacity, etc. and that everything gets constantly monitored and adjusted. I am constantly amazed how clueless some people are that think they can comment on tech details and on whether something is possible or not.
Re: (Score:2)
I do sometimes wonder if it's because the US has a much less stable electricity grid than Europe. I get the impression from what Americans post on the internet that things like blackouts and brownouts are somewhat common. Maybe I should look for some stats.
Re: (Score:2)
I get the impression from what Americans post on the internet that things like blackouts and brownouts are somewhat common. Maybe I should look for some stats.
This. The brownouts they have in the USA we've not experienced here in the UK since the 1970s which was due to unions going on strike all the time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks, that's interesting. I've never felt the need to get a UPS here either.
Re: (Score:2)
In the US [...] a brownout is typical several times a month, a complete blackout will happen generally at least once every year, sometimes in predictable situations, sometimes not[...]
Where the hell do you live???
I grew up in parts of the south and midwest where not every home had electricity or plumbing... and I have never experienced anything like what you are describing. I live on the central coast of California these days, and have experienced ONE blackout in the decade since I moved here (note: we are not supplied by PG&E...)
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting. I do know that DCs here typically habe USPs, but usually they do not need it and just go with two different local distribution grids and fast fail-over. On a DC visit for a new one that had run about 5 years at the time, when I asked how often the had needed the UPS or backup generators, the answer was "never, except in the yearly test-run".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For what it's worth, it's really only areas that have made shockingly bad policy decisions that suffer from "load shedding" blackouts and such. I'm 43 years old and haven't had to deal with that even once, but I also have lived places that make sensible energy policy for the most part (e.g. not California or Texas).
This summer might be a thing though, with a big nuclear plant in the midwest beginning decommissioning without really building any replacement generation. Could get bumpy in the midwest US, but
Re: (Score:2)
We like to exaggerate our brown/black outs when we talk about them. Living in San Diego county, the last blackout was a planned outage for my neighborhood to upgrade equipment.
The last unexpected one was likely when we had really bad winds and an active fire in the county, but that's been enough years that I can't remember for San Diego. Northern California sounds a lot worse but you would have to talk to people up there.
Texas grid has made news a lot lately but then they did have a major event. I don't rea
Re: (Score:2)
We like to exaggerate our brown/black outs when we talk about them.
So you think this is more of a "victim stance" than a real problem? Hmm.
Re: (Score:2)
Overall, yes I do. Also, when your government is incompetent, do you just sit there and wait for them to wake up or do you do something to protect yourself?
If my state couldn't keep the lights on 99% of the time (and California, San Diego, does indeed do this) I would of prioritized some kind of power backup. The fact that I can't remember the last power outage means it isn't a major problem.
Re: (Score:2)
That could be it. I have no idea how common blackouts are here in Europe, I have had two (same cause, within 30 minutes of each other) in 20 years and that is not enough for a baseline. I do not remember any brownouts, ever. It seems they are quite common in the US with its crumbling infrastructure.
Re: (Score:2)
Solar is quite predictable in most of Hawai'i.
It's not in many other parts of the world, including where I am, so some type of storage and/or base load generation is going to be needed for the foreseeable future.
Re: (Score:2)
That was the old state, pre-computer. You can do short-range forecasts today, because clouds do not move very fast and computers can monitor output of individual solar installations and wind directions. So yes, you _can_ bring shut down the generators in many situations, you can bring them back up to idle if needed and you can put load on them within sub-second intervals. Just needs to be done using current tech, not tech from 50 years ago.
Re:isn't storage the problem there? (Score:5, Interesting)
You cant' just cycle up generators in the evening and power them down during the day
Have you ever started a generator of any size?
"a couple of minutes" is way too long to bring stability back to the grid
That's not how any of this works. You keep a certain amount of additional capacity online. Since there are many generators, you can do it by running subsets of them, and you shut off the most expensive ones to run (fuel transportation, maintenance costs for different models, etc.) first. When you start coming down to the line you start another generator. Solar output variance is due to sun being obscured, this doesn't happen all at once. With the solar panels being broadly distributed, the shadow edge sweeping across the panels produces a ramp or curve. The more of them you have, the smoother it is. Presumably there is a middle area where you have enough to be a problem but not enough to be optimally useful, but that's an argument for more evenly distributed installation and nothing else.
If you have the money, you use batteries. Grid stabilization is best done with battery storage by far, there is literally nothing else that even comes vaguely close. Nothing else can react as rapidly, so nothing else will let you run your production as close to your consumption, period. The best way to solve any grid-tied solar variance problem is to build centralized (and yet also distributed — just not located in every home) battery storage. This gets the homeowner out of having to maintain it, and puts it where it can benefit the most people. But having the generation distributed also benefits the most people, in two ways. One, it makes the whole thing more predictable and reduces the rate of change. Two, it has the least requirements for the grid. Point of use production keeps transmission down.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Batteries scale up because they are about 10x as effective in short term grid services as a kinetic plant. On a diurnal basis they work maybe 2x as effectively, with a potential exception being peaks at dinnertime-- there it is likely a wash.
Batteries can be installed at scale for $300/kWh. Without the natural geography or water shed to an upper resivour pumped hydro is about $300/kWh today optimistically; molten salt was nearly $1,000 last time I had checked.
Re: (Score:2)
How exactly would any storage technology scale _better_ than batteries? Sure, molten salt will improve, relative to itself, as it scales up (to a certain point, where having a huge vat of molten salt might start to get a bit problematic). It won't improve relative to batteries by scaling up though. Neither will pumped hydro storage, where you're limited by geography and you can scale to a certain point, and then no further, unless you make yourself some new geography, which is prohibitively expensive. For b
Re: (Score:2)
And yet, despite your brilliant logic, solar works and is being used and is generating power and is saving on electricity bills, and many utilities oppose it because it is cutting into their profits. Eppur si muove.
Generally the utilities generate more electricity than is needed. Storage works great even without solar. We have pumped hydro stations in California - excess power pumps water up into the reservoir, and it's been there for fifty years. Though the extended drought is causing pumped storage and
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
interesting, so how do those generaters cope with passing clouds? cloud cover can take generation from 100% to almost zero in seconds?
It's a good question. The answer is "no problem". The great thing about most renewable energy systems, as opposed to inflexible thermal power systems like coal or nuclear, is that it's largely made up of many small independent generators. Even better, solar panels can simply reduce power below their current target automatically in response to higher voltages on the grid, which means that there can always be spare capacity just ready to be used. It's true that one set of solar panels will lose power in secon
Re: (Score:3)
cloud cover can take generation from 100% to almost zero in seconds?
It does not. Therefore no answer to this not-a-problem is required. You may have noticed that on an overcast day, there's still sunlight, right?
There will be generation loss, but it won't be anywhere near 100%. And if you have a generation shortfall, then the exact same switching that turns on the diesel and gas generation at night can switch on when needed.
What, did you think they put all that on a timer or something?
Re: (Score:2)
*Obviously* the grid costs don't go down to 20 to 30% of today. But *obviously* they do actually decrease, and quite substantially. So *obviously*, it's still a net financial gain, as well as having obvious other benefits for lower carbon intensity, less reliance on imported fossil fuels, etc
Re: (Score:2)
Only if you define grid costs to exclude costs of fuel!
Re: (Score:2)
grid scale storage is incredibly expensive
Compared to what? The big solar plus battery storage plant in socal is coming out at a lower cost than coal.
Re:isn't storage the problem there? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hear there's real ... um disagreements between consumers and the utility about people wanting to use solar panels when the sun shines and utility power when it doesn't. And utilities not offering pricing friendly to solar. I wonder what the numbers are for people actually installing a lot of storage and going fully off grid. I'd like to hear of large storage projects to store all that sunshine.
You are totally correct Sir. Hawaii was the first state where the instabilities of a Grid Tie only solar panel system first became apparent. In fact, in 2015 they stopped allowing new grid tie systems onto the grid ( https://blogs.scientificameric... [scientificamerican.com] ). I don't know if that's still true but it would surprise me if it wasn't. Basically, grid tie solar panel systems inherently add instability to an electrical grid. If there are not a lot of systems on the grid, your fine. As the number of grid tie systems increase, the instabilities can increase so that at some point you can't have a stable grid. The solution of course is storage.
Please note that I am totally for Solar Power and PV systems. It's just we need to really start requiring storage for new systems or we are going to start seeing huge grid problems in the near future.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Basically, grid tie solar panel systems inherently add instability to an electrical grid. If there are not a lot of systems on the grid, your fine. As the number of grid tie systems increase, the instabilities can increase so that at some point you can't have a stable grid.
That's at least in a large part a problem of the wrong controllers / configuration. The inverter attached to the solar panels could be set up to limit power either according to supply voltage or, with a network connection, according to instructions from the grid. Many home systems will be set up to just try to deliver whatever power they have, almost no matter what (up to safety limits rather than oversupply limits). The first case, correctly configured, should always add to grid stability.
Re: (Score:3)
Your own link states that this is a problem specific to Hawaii, because Hawaii doesn't have an interconnected grid that it can use to send excess power elsewhere. It mentions that, for example, California and Germany don't have that problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. Probably would make some people less rich in the short term, so this was not done.
Re: (Score:2)
Underseas cables in a geologically active area. What could possibly go wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, in theory you could float the cable... they should get the engineering done just in time for fusion power. ;)
But seriously, submerged floating tunnel [wikipedia.org] demos have proven the concept is viable. The same technology used for the dynamic cables between offshore wind generators and the submerged cables that carry their output can be used for the cables.
Re: (Score:3)
A lot can go wrong with undersea cables. The first one survived less than a day, as far as I remember. That is why you ask experts to do it.
Incidentally, Hawaii _has_ undersea cables for its internet connections, so the idea is in no way outlandish.
Re: (Score:2)
An undersea data cable 7800 km long is feasible. An undersea power cable of that length will have massive losses. You'd be better of diverting the excess power to an electrolysis plant on Hawaii. Using hydrogen as power storage is pretty inefficient, but in this case it's less inefficient than tying Hawaii's grid to California.
Or are you saying Hawaii's islands are not interconnected?
Re: (Score:2)
They did an irresponsible thing when they first rolled out solar. My house has 7kW(AC) of PV, and the transformer supplying me and ~25 of my neighbors is only 25kVA. The problem is they did not pivot soon enough to address these shortfalls so you have a lot of transformers that are failing due to overload. (I usually export ~5kW for 4 hours per day.)
But, they don't create any incentives for people like me to be part of the solution now, which boxe in new people who want to add solar as prices have droppe
Re: (Score:1)
Also, last I checked, wasn't Hawaii's utility under water due to rooftop solar?
To the point where they were withholding approvals for new installations because they were losing money hand over fist?
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is when ever a business has to change its business model.
Other than changing their company business model to accommodate, the new conditions of the times, they will often just go on a rant trying to give law suits to ever they can, lobby politicians, and find ways to fleece the customers and say it isn't their fault that prices have risen.
Being that so much power is generated at homes, the power companies business model has changed. They need to slow their power generation business, but find wa
Re: (Score:2)
Saying Tesla is disrupting the car market is giving a little to much credit. They are likely the first electric car the typical person thinks of, but they barely sell any cars compared to everyone else.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they were able to setup a business that initially was able to cash in on government subsidies to push electric cars. Now they have enough momentum that even without getting the subsidies (they used all the car ones up) they are still able to be profitable.
In another year or two, I
Re: (Score:2)
Yes but...
Unlike mainland US (and elsewhere) there isn't a large interconnected baseload grid. Also, since the bulk of their generation comes from burning oil there's a direct offset to that from solar power. So even if solar only works during the day - which happily coincides with peak demand - there is still a very tangible reduction in high-cost oil generation plant demand. Longer term, yes, there might come a time where the overnight demand dictates a minimum amount of baseload generation but that's
Re: (Score:2)
A few years back, the grid operators in Hawaii were basically not issuing any more net metering permits because they said there was too much solar already (read: we don't get to sell nearly as much energy as we want to) so larger companies and buildings started building their own microgrids with on-site storage instead.
Sounds like maybe in the few years between when that was happening and now, that someone came to their senses, either on their own, or by government choke-hold.
Re: (Score:2)
It's overall better for the individuals to have battery+solar and just use the grid as the backup. Technology keeps getting better and older technology does fall away. Maybe a grid just doesn't make sense for islanders, especially given the cost of solar+batteries now.
Re: (Score:2)
There are some situations where on-site battery storage isn't going to be cost effective due to the electrical design of the structure, and limitations of currently available hardware. For example, I'm having solar installed on my house this month, and I'd love to have battery backup with it, but I would have had to install FOUR of Tesla's Powerwall modules to get it done, because the house has 2 x 200A main panels that each have their own line off the meter. They don't have a piece of hardware that has t
Re: (Score:2)
This objection arises all the time. But the heaviest use of electricity is during the day, when the sun does shine. Solar at the moment is NOT intended to be a 100% replacement for all other electricity sources. I think the fossil fuel industry pushes this line all the time, making people hesitant to try solar, and I wish people would stop repeating it because it's so obviously irrelevant. Yes, storage is very useful but that does not mean people need to wait 25-50 years for that technology to advance befo
Re: (Score:2)
For Hawaii, loads are not dominated by air conditioning (especially during the day). The peak demand is dinner time.
Next goal (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they should look at the ground (Score:1)
pipe some of that lava into the furnace
Re: (Score:2)
The main Hawaiian Islands are Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lnai, Kahoolawe, Maui, and Hawaii. 2/3 thirds of the pop. lives on O'ahu. And as some above mentioned, there are no electric lines between the islands. It is only the big island, Hawai'i that has the geothermal if memory serves correct. The rest have shifted north and west off the hot spot.
But what about the grid? (Score:2)
In large parts of the country it is no longer even allowed to build a solar farm (30+ panels) because there is simply no infrastructure to transport the electricity away.
How does Hawaii solve this issue?
Also in the light of ever increasi
Re: (Score:2)
In large parts of the country it is no longer even allowed to build a solar farm (30+ panels) because there is simply no infrastructure to transport the electricity away.
How does Hawaii solve this issue?
Better infrastructure...?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They know even more about making money. Energy, transmission and storage are secondary. These problems with solar are not new, they were known from the start. The utilities have been too slow to keep infrastructure up to date.
Re: (Score:2)
You make jokes, but the intended audience isn't a utility company; it's the amazingly ignorant people that constantly come into the comments section of articles like these and post "factual" statements that aren't even remotely true.
Energy companies know all about these solutions, they just don't install them because it's easier and cheaper to get a pack of bum politicians re-elected to hold the regulatory line for your and protect your margins without building anything at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Norway has a lot of pumped hydro storage, which is the greatest way of gravitational storage of energy available, and to follow your nomenclature, the biggest batteries on the planet. They cause electricity in the north of the country to be so cheap that it can be considered effectively free.
Re: But what about the grid? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Incorrect, Norway has pumped hydro. Google it !
There is a 700MW interconnected between The Netherlands and Norway and 1400MW interconnect between the UK and Norway.
Find out where it is used for!
Re: But what about the grid? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you talking about these "non existing" pumped hydro storage plants in Norway? https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073... [mdpi.com]
Sure, it is only 1400 MW, but that is not nothing.
Re: But what about the grid? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Fair enough. The total is more like 10% pumped storage though as they seem to have an average of 15GW power consumption. Storage does, of course, not produce power and hence needs to be calculated differently.
But when searching for this I also found that they could expand that drastically. It makes no sense for Norway to do this for themselves, as they have 95% of the total electricity generation as hydro at about 2x the capacity they need themselves. Probably needs a few more HVDC lines to get the power t
Re: (Score:2)
Re:But what about the grid? (Score:5, Interesting)
The key to grid issues is to try and use as much power as possible locally, so house batteries so make a big difference to how effect solar is on individual basis.
Re: (Score:2)
In large parts of the country it is no longer even allowed to build a solar farm (30+ panels) because there is simply no infrastructure to transport the electricity away.
How does Hawaii solve this issue?
Hawaii would have to solve the problem with a very expensive cable, or with more storage of some kind. Maybe hydrogen actually makes sense there, for example.
A better question is why your country, which has two adjacent countries, doesn't have better connections to your neighbors so that you can export your excess. It's not like you're butted up against undeveloped nations, either.
Re: (Score:2)
For Hawaii, a single Megapack at each of the residential area substations would likely do enough to offset transmission requirements. But the problem isn't really on the transmission side, it is on the residential transformers being grossly undersized for solar.
Wave power? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's an island.
Still not quite there yet, AFIAK.
Trivially solved - except . . (Score:1)
. . . queue the corruption, and ensuing scandal.
All it would take is legislation that mandated any home sale after year X (let's say 10 years in the future) can only take place with a rooftop solar + battery installation. Non-compliant homes would pay a punitive fee to the state.
Something similar was done to get people off oil for heating (in many places). Worked a treat then, will work the same now.
Why on Earth would Hawaii want to go Solar? (Score:2)
They're practically a test case for geothermal energy.
Re: (Score:2)
Because the sun continues to hit a very large portion of land mass without filling your generating infrastructure with fresh rock.
too late (Score:2)
Looking to the sun for answers isn't going to get them anywhere. They will need an oracle to find what they need.